Have you ever been “pipped” to getting an idea out by another researcher?

I have this morning. I just wanted to share some of my thoughts to see if it helps you.

What happened?

I made the error this morning of checking socials as soon as I woke up.

I saw that someone had published something very interesting about coaching and neurodivergence. Some of you know that I’m working on a research project about coaching and autism.

And some of you will know that it is a challenge for me to move that project forward at times.

I have done a lot of self-coaching and journalling to get to a point where I don’t have as much rejection sensitivity as I used to. I am also much more emotionally-regulated and aware of my responses to events than I used to be.

However, when I saw the news about this publication, the truth is not that my first thought was “Wow – that’s a great resource to improve coaching for neurodivergent people”.

My first thought was “Wow…if only I hadn’t procrastinated so much, I’d have got my project finished by now and I’d be sharing my publication news.”

Oooooft – that was a big one to hit me at 5.40am this morning. (Cheers, Mossy dog for waking me up!)

So what did I do? How can I help myself when something like this happens?

What did I do about it?

This morning, I did the following

1) Externalised my thoughts and feelings – I am sharing them with you and my Twitter crew to help me make sense of what I feel and why. (Doing this in a journal is perfectly fine though. I share because it might help someone else.)

2) I remembered a message I give to many of my coaching clients: “You always have some element of choice here”. We cannot control at all what other people do in the world BUT we do have the opportunity (with time and practice) to influence – not force – our response to things. I realised that I can just get caught up in the feelings here or I can use my strong emotional reaction to TAKE ACTION.

3) I also journalled about what research is and what my job as a researcher is. Research is about moving the knowledge base forward. My job as a researcher is to make my unique contribution that others can’t. As a neurodivergent researcher, it’s about getting into the detail of what others miss or do not understand. It was helpful for me to realise this morning that, actually, just because something has come out first, it doesn’t mean it addresses all the same problems as I will, or in the same way.

So what were the tools, really?

When we look at what I’ve done here, I’ve used two tools, really:

Externalisation (getting it out of my head to make sense of it and learn from it)

Reflection (thinking about what has happened, how I feel about it, and what I will do differently or better as a result to influence – not control – my own research outcomes)

Please notice that what I HAVE NOT DONE is deny my feelings, push them away, attempt to ignore them, or engage in any form of toxic positivity. I’ve confronted and explored my discomfort and disappointment…but I haven’t squashed it down.

So if this has happened to you, it’s ok to feel what you feel about it. That’s natural and normal and, as with me, the feelings can even fuel you to move forward when you’re ready.

If you want to talk to someone about this and discuss how to keep going with your projects when you feel like you’ve been pipped, then this is something we can talk about in our coaching.